


February, 1986

by Elizabeth_Woodville



Series: The Jason Trilogy [1]
Category: Falsettos - Lapine/Finn
Genre: Gratuitous Judaism, I'm Sorry, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Jason-Centric, Letters, M/M, POV First Person, Post-Canon, This probably sucks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-11
Updated: 2018-06-11
Packaged: 2019-05-21 04:58:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14908797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elizabeth_Woodville/pseuds/Elizabeth_Woodville
Summary: Jason writes letters to Whizzer during those two years. And continues to do so, long after Whizzer leaves for real. This is one of those letters.





	February, 1986

**Author's Note:**

> I'm new to the Archive, and I've written a lot of fic, but never really showed it to anyone. I wrote this about a year ago, as part of a series about Jason. A lot of it is based off of my personal headcanons, so if it doesn't make sense, I'm sorry. It's kinda late, and not my best, but for a first piece, it'll do. On the odd chance that anyone is reading, tell me what you think.

Whizzer,  
My dad died last night.  
It has a name now. AIDS. They call it gay cancer, but I don't really know how it works.  
All I know is I've lost two dads now to the same fucking thing.  
He was getting a little better after you left.  
He attempted to kill himself when I was 14.  
Cordelia found him with a Magnum and a bottle of Jack Daniels on the fire escape one morning.  
Nobody would talk about it with me around, just like they never talked about the time Mom almost slit her wrists. They must think I'm stupid or naive. So much for becoming a man, huh?  
But he was getting better.  
Then suddenly I realized, something wasn't right, something was very very wrong and before I could say anything, he collapsed one morning and was in the hospital.  
We didn't talk much, in his last few months. He stayed there for nine months. Charlotte never said it, but we could all tell she was shocked that he'd held on this long. He was pale and thin and he looked like a skeleton. He couldn't hold down food, and he was always feverish. His hair was gone within two months, his skin covered with those awful red rashes and bumps. He just seemed so... disconnected from everyone and everything, for awhile we couldn't leave him alone because we thought he'd try to kill himself again. Sometimes he'd be so delirious he'd call out for you and he'd sob when you weren't there. It was heartbreaking.  
Most days, I'd just sit with him and we'd play chess. We haven't been very close since you left, Whiz.  
For awhile, it felt like it did when he first left my mom. But we were all hurting together this time. When he left, I soon realized it was for the best. For him and Mom, for you, for Mendel. For me. Everyone deals in their own ways, you know. Everyone remembers it the way they need to. Charlotte dedicated herself to finding a cure, to research, to helping men like you. Cordelia finally got her catering business going.  
As for Mom and Mendel, they had a baby, Elizabeth Weisenbachfeld. June 13, 1983. A day before your birthday. Elisheva, daughter of Trina, daughter of Mendel, sister of Jason, and godchild to Marvin and the lesbians from next door. And named after Ezra David Braun. They told me to pick her name. And, of course, it's traditional to name a baby after a loved one. I think Mom was a little worried that I'd straight up name her Whizzer, y'know? Like what the hell do you do when your kid names your baby after your ex-husband's dead ex-ex lover, let alone give a baby a name like Whizzer Weisenbachfeld? But I did name her after you, not that Mom or Mendel knew. Hope you don't mind. I like to think you wouldn't mind.  
I never told Dad. I realized he never even knew your real name. He was admitted to the hospital a month after Lisha's second birthday. I felt like it would hurt him more than bring him closure. So it was my little secret. I'll tell her someday, when she's grown up. I'll take her to the park and teach her how to play baseball and we'll go to the Dairy Queen by Central Park, and I'll take her down to the cemetery and tell her all about her namesake, and maybe my dad.  
I still went over there every weekend to stay with him. There was always something missing. And he'd try so damn hard to make up for it. We'd go for ice cream, he'd let me beat him in chess, we'd watch _Return of the Jedi._  
(You never got to see that one. I still can't watch _Empire Strikes Back_ without thinking about you. You kissing Dad during the battle of Hoth when you thought I wasn't watching. Whining about the lack of Harrison Ford throughout the movie. That next morning when he left for work, kissed you on the cheek and told you he loved you. And you just nodded and said, "I know." When you bitched and moaned about the shitty ending for the next week and a half, and he finally promised we'd all have a father-son-and-Whizzer day when the next one came out.  
We went. I pretended not to see him cry when Han finally told Leia he loved her and she simply said, "I know.")  
We pretended a lot after you died. We all did. That stupid charade they all started when you were in the hospital. But the masks all dropped at some point or another.  
Some nights, I'd hear him crying when he thought I was asleep. I looked in on him once, when he was looking through your things. He just sat there, on that rug you bought, the one he said was a 'godawful abomination', clutching that stupid pink Polo of yours. A box of your photos at his side, your goddamn record collection and your books and your shoebox full of keepsakes. And he looked so broken, Whizzer.  
Your records were still scattered around the house. The Four Seasons, ABBA, Queen, the Beach Boys all stacked under the coffee table. He gave me your tapes. I never realized just how much you loved those damn Broadway cast tapes. Gypsy and A Chorus Line are nearly worn out. Dad seemed reluctant, but he told me about when you went to see Evita. How he'd come home from work to the smell of burned food and Chinese takeout, and you'd be singing along with Patti Lupone at the top of your lungs. It was the first time I'd seen him laugh in months.  
(I listened to it on the way to Mom's. I think I scared her, coming home in tears, listening to Eva's Lament.)  
I don't think he ever touched your side of the bed again. It took him so long to get the apartment together. Cordelia and Charlotte came to help. But he kept so much. Hell, he still put your mug out next to his every morning. (Remember when he'd bitch at you about coffee vs tea? You guys were fucking obnoxious about that. Him and his stupid herbal tea, you and your ridiculous French press.) I could always hear him say the kaddish before bed every night. Long after the year of mourning had passed. Sometimes he'd just break down crying in the middle. Sometimes I'd mouth it along with him.  
_Yitgadal v’yitkadash sh’mei raba..._  
He stopped going to Temple. Said he didn't believe in a god anymore.  
_B’alma di v’ra chirutei, b’chayeichon uv’yomeichon…._  
After my bar mitzvah, I wasn't sure what I believed either.  
_Uv’chayei d’chol beit Yisrael, baagala uviz’man kariv._  
But he always believed in you. He'd go by Mount Zion, by your grave every chance he had.  
_V’imru: Amen._  
Once, he somehow escaped from the hospital to visit you with a bouquet of red roses. I think he took a stone with him every time too, because whenever I stopped by, there were always more, piled on your stone.  
_Y’hei sh’mei raba m’varach l’alam ul’almei almaya..._  
In one of those last few days, in between bouts of delirium, he gave me your picture box and the polaroid. Said you'd have wanted me to have it.  
I could hardly stop crying long enough to take a photo, but I did get one, a blurred image of him in his hospital bed. Tucked inside that stupid box was the letter you wrote him. He kept it, in his pocket, under his pillow, somewhere close at all times. Four years, Whizzer. Four long years.  
_Yitbarach v’yishtabach v’yotpaar, v’yitromam v’yitnasei…._  
I read it. Maybe I shouldn't've, it felt real personal, but I did.  
And for the first time I understood just how you could love someone like him.  
_V’yit’hadar v’yitaleh v’yit’halal…._  
He was awful to Mom. And I know he probably screamed at you too. But the way you wrote about him made me think that maybe I never really knew him to begin with. There's so much I don't know Whizzer. I'll never get to ask him how he met you, or what his favorite color is or anything. I feel like I didn't know him at all. And you... well, you're always a man of mystery, aren't you?  
But you wrote about him like he was the sun. Like he was the center of your world.  
Or maybe you just have that effect on people.  
_Sh’mei d’kud’sha b’rich hu, l’eila min kol birchata v’shirata…._  
He talked about you the same way. Like you were the best thing that's ever happened to him. That look in his eyes when he'd kiss you. I didn't realize how unhappy he'd been with Mom.  
_Tuhb’chata v’nechemata, daamiran b’alma…_  
I remember when I was ten years old, and I asked him why he left, and he sat me on his knee and said, "Jason, love is the most beautiful thing in the world." And, being ten, I scoffed. Love? He'd left my mother. Left me. What could someone like him know about love?  
_V'imru: Amen._  
I remember being afraid of being like him. Not just when I was afraid I'd be gay too, but when I was afraid of throwing my life away for something, someone, like he did. I remember watching him and Mom going at it, watching him and you fight, and praying, begging that I wouldn't end up like him. I hated him, Whizzer. I hated him and I hated myself. I wanted nothing more than to shut him out of my life completely.  
But that's kinda hard with split custody.  
So I tried my best to pay him as little attention as possible. I ignored him when he told me he loved me. I played chess alone. I didn't talk to him any more than was absolutely necessary.  
And then I met you.  
_Y’hei sh’lama raba min sh’maya…._  
It was accidental, one Friday night when Dad was held up at a meeting and I arrived at his apartment and you were already there. The shabbat candles were lit, dinner was sitting on the stove to keep it warm.  
And next thing you know, we're eating your kosher lasagna straight out the dish and playing chess like old pals. By the time Dad came home, we were already best friends. (Funny, how I hated him for leaving my mom, but I loved you more than anything. The mind of a ten year old is a fucked up place.)  
_V’chayim aleinu v’al kol Yisrael…._  
And only now, being seventeen, and having had my own ups and downs of something that could be mistaken for love, do I look at the life he had with you. And only now do I realize that he loved you more than he was ever even capable of loving my mom. More than you ever even knew, Whiz. More than he ever said or even knew, I think. And I think about what he said about love. And I think maybe, just maybe, he was onto something.  
_V’imru: Amen._  
I wasn't even there when he died. My own father, and I wasn't even there. Mom and Mendel woke me up in the middle of the night to tell me that he'd gone into a coma and probably wouldn't last til morning. Mom was crying and crying and she wouldn't let me drive to the hospital. Finally, Mendel relented. He drove me to the hospital, but by that point, we were greeted at his room by Charlotte. We'd missed him by twelve minutes. Time of death, 3:24 a.m., February 9th, 1986. He was 39 years old; two months and nine days short of his fortieth birthday.  
And just one month shy of what should've been your five year anniversary after getting back together.  
_Oseh shalom biromav, hu yaaseh shalom aleinu, v’al kol Yisrael…._  
He didn’t get to die surrounded by people who loved him. He just died, alone. I like to think you appeared to him before he died, like an angel, or a ghost, the way it happens in the movies. But like I said, I don't know what I believe anymore. All I know is, regardless of what I believe, I'm still writing to you. And I'd like to think he's with you, wherever the hell you are now.  
Dad was so goddamned happy with you. I don’t think I ever saw him so happy as when he was with you.  
I wish you were here. I just miss you, both of you, so fucking much.  
_V'imru: Amen._  
Love,  
Jason


End file.
